Spock’s Wife Asks for Financial Aid

BOSTON —  The wife of Dr. Benjamin Spock, America’s best-known baby doctor, is asking for money from friends and family to help pay his home-care medical bills of $10,000 a month, the Boston Globe reported.

“I’m sorry to say we have exhausted all our resources. Our needs are urgent,” Mary Morgan, 54, Spock’s second wife, said.

Spock will turn 95 on May 2, the day Pocket Books is scheduled to come out with the seventh edition of “Baby and Child Care.” The book, first published in 1945, has earned Spock $20 million to $30 million, according to an estimate by a Cambridge, Mass., literary agent.

Spock has suffered a heart attack and a stroke. Morgan, who has been married to him for 23 years, also said he had pneumonia six times last year but is mentally alert and not suffering from a specific disease now.

In her letter to family and friends, Morgan said home care requires two or three full-time helpers and special food and equipment.

Morgan said her husband made $500,000 last year and spent $45,000 on medical expenses, which she figured would increase to $120,000 this year. She said his total expenses last year were $535,000, much of it for agents and secretaries.